Why?

12.23.2011

We must be doing something right...

I like Christmas lights. I've never been the type to engage in installing a large or elaborate display for cost/opportunity reasons(tough to do a big display in the apartment), but that's fine...Christmas lights are something you can do while living vicariously through others. Wednesday night, I used the offer of Chinese food a a bribe to get my wife and kids out of the house, and after dinner, we went off on a random course through neighborhoods, enjoying the Christmas lights.

One stop was fully intentional. The Corporate Head Quarters of Senske Lawn and Tree Care is decorated quite nicely. They even went as far as to put in a little FM transmitter, and a light synchronizing system, to make the lights flash with the music. I've seen videos of that kind of stuff on the internet machine, but have never seen it in person.

My kids were suitably impressed. Speechless even, which when you are dealing with two young girls is quite an accomplishment.

After about two songs, when they were coming down from their sense of awe, Bella, my older daughter, summed it up thusly:

'Daddy...that's better than TV.'

And her younger sister agreed with her!

We hold a pretty tight chain on the TV. For the most part the girls prefer animated stuff to some of the live-action shows on Nickelodeon, which is okay with me...from what I have seen, most of those shows involve 'too-smart-for-their-own-good' world-wise kids trying to constantly outsmart their parents. We also have never let them watch a single episode of 'Sponge Bob' while under our roof. 2/3rds of their viewing boils down to three shows: Johnny Test and Fairly Odd-Parents, which both rate a 'meh' in my book, and then Phineas and Ferb, which I feel could be the best show on TV. The other third of what they watch are dinosaur and animal related shows, and recently 'Beakman's World'. Educational stuff.

statement

"What did I want?

I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The games' afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin. I wanted Prester John and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon.

I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be -- instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is."
-- Glory Road, Robert Heinlein